Many of the personal care products, mortuary and veterinary products, protective wear garments, and medical care garments and products in use today are partially or wholly constructed of extruded articles such as thermoplastic film materials, thermoplastic fibers and fibrous nonwoven materials, and thermoplastic foam materials. Examples of such products include, but are not limited to, medical and health care products such as surgical drapes, gowns and bandages, protective workwear garments such as coveralls and lab coats, and infant, child and adult personal care absorbent products such as diapers, training pants, disposable swimwear, incontinence garments and pads, sanitary napkins, wipes and the like. For these applications thermoplastic nonwoven fibrous webs and thermoplastic films provide tactile, comfort and aesthetic properties which can approach or even exceed those of products or garments made from traditional woven or knitted cloth materials.
Other material properties may be desirable depending on end-use applications. For example, for certain end-use applications such as protective fabrics, for instance medical products such as surgical fabrics for drapes and gowns, and fabrics for other protective garments, barrier properties are highly desirable. Further, surgical fabrics for drapes and gowns should have a high degree of repellency to low surface tension liquids such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones and hydrophilic liquids, such as those containing surfactants, in order to more fully protect medical personnel. Repellency to low surface tension liquids is also highly desirable for protective garment fabrics such as lab coats or industrial protective workwear, for example, and for other protective cover materials designed for outdoor use such as, for example, tent fabrics, tarpaulins, car and boat covers, and the like.
In order to provide desired functional repellent properties or characteristics to products, topically applied treatments are known which may be sprayed or otherwise applied to film or fibrous material, and melt-processable additives are known which may be introduced into a thermoplastic polymeric melt and thus be extruded along with the thermoplastic polymer during the process of forming extruded articles. Many exemplary topical and melt-processable fluorochemical treatments, such as chemicals having one or more fluorinated alkyl end groups, and particularly fluorinated octane groups such as perfluorooctane, are known to provide acceptable repellency to low surface tension fluids. However, recent concerns over the possible bioaccumulative and/or bio-persistent nature of perfluorinated higher alkyl groups such as perfluorooctane compounds and perfluorodecane compounds, etc., have led to the development of fluorochemical repellency treatments comprising shorter fluorinated alkyl end groups, and particularly fluorinated butane end groups such as perfluorobutane.
However, there remains a continuing need for fluorochemical treatments, and particularly fluorochemical treatments capable of enhancing the repellency of extruded articles and materials made therefrom, at all or nearly all stages of production and use of the article or material.